Summary of Portable Digital Audio Recorders

As a sound artist and composer I make field recordings an integral part of my artistic practice. I capture sounds in their native habitat and bring them back to the studio to use them as components in new sound pieces. Once upon a time it was difficult to find a decent digital field recorder for an affordable price. Now everyone and their uncle seems to be releasing portable flash recorders. The problem now is trying to decide which of the plethora of devices is most suitable.

In this article I will summarise several years of reading and careful specification comparison, not to mention actual practice in the field. A pattern has emerged in the available products, which I will illustrate by comparing twenty different recorder models. I hope this will help you to make an informed purchase decision, which I will assist with further in part two of this series.

Criteria

My criteria may be different from yours, so it's important for you to keep a list of the features, abilities and characteristics you value. There is no one device that suits all purposes. I own three digital recorders plus an audio interface for a laptop. And I use all four of these hardware setups depending on my needs.

I won't be getting very technical here. The single specification I will consider is the noise floor, that is, how much noise the microphone preamps add to recording. This is critical when capturing quiet sounds. If instead you are mostly interested in concert recording or taping your band rehearsing, this will not be such an issue. (Instead you might care more about the maximum sound pressure level, or SPL, the unit can handle.)

In this article I will measure noise using Equivalent Input Noise (EIN) A-weighted at 150 ohms, measured in dBu. If you don't know the technical details, don't worry. Simply know that the higher the number the less noise the recorder adds to the signal chain. And that's a good thing¹. (I'll look at this in more detail in the third article in the series.)


Of critical importance is what sort of microphones the recorder can use. For our purposes there are three types. First, many of the smaller recorders come with a pair of built-in stereo electret condensers so you can get recording without any additional gear. These are certainly convenient and might provide sufficient audio quality. But you can improve matters by using an external microphone (in which case the microphone preamp becomes the limiting feature). Second, almost all recorders can supply plug-in power (PIP) on a stereo mini-jack, which allows the use of certain low to medium quality condensers. The PIP supplies a small voltage (5V) that the microphone capsule needs in order to work.

Still other recorders can provide phantom power on XLR jacks, thus allowing you to use any and all professional mics. Phantom power is an audio standard for providing 48V to the microphone². This setup assumes you don't mind carrying two microphones, two cables, a microphone stand, plus mounts and fittings. This is a whole different world of "convenience" from simply pointing your recorder at the sound source. But it is necessary if you wish the ultimate in stereo sound quality³.

Which brings us to what is often the most important criterion: price. Some of us may have $4000 to spend, but for others $400 is already sufficient. The remarkable fact is that great units are available on the market while staying under that lower figure.


Comparisons

Now I'll present the table of 20 recorders, in order of increasing size. Very expensive or obscure recorders have been omitted, though the Sound Devices 702 has been retained as a baseline for comparison. Older models have been ignored in favour of their replacements unless both are readily available and offer some distinct advantage.

The columns are as follows:

• Brand and name of the recorder.
• Dimensions in millimeters, largest side first.
• Volume in cubic mm.
• Mass in grams.
• Price in US dollars, since this currency is the easiest to compare for all of the units. These prices are for new units and reflect generally-available current pricing, which is sometimes a good deal less than list. Refurbished and second-hand items may be found to reduce the cost. Packages for different international markets sometimes include different accessories, so be sure you know what you are getting.
• Presence of XLR mic inputs with phantom power.
• Presence of built-in stereo mics suitable for the purpose under discussion. (Units may also have mics for note-taking or slating.)
• Equivalent Input Noise (EIN) A-weighted at 150 ohms, in dBu. These values have been taken from the excellent Avisoft Bioacoustics, with further details from The Wildlife Sound Recording Society.

A "+" means the unit has that feature; a "-" means it does not.

Without further ado, the table please...

POCKET                 DIMENSIONS       VOL  MASS  PRICE  XLR  MIC  EIN
-------------------    --------------  ----  ----  -----  ---  ---  ---
Sony     MZ-RH1         85 x  84 x 15   107   106  $ 350    -    -  124
Olympus  LS-10         132 x  48 x 22   139   165  $ 300    -    +  122 
Olympus  LS-11         132 x  48 x 22   139   165  $ 400    -    +  122 
Sony     PCM-M10       114 x  64 x 22   161   187  $ 300    -    +  122
Marantz  PMD620        102 x  62 x 25   164   170  $ 400    -    -  112
M-Audio  MicroTrack II 109 x  63 x 28   174   192  $ 200    -    -  106
Korg     MR-1          120 x  64 x 24   184   200  $ 500    -    -  117
Edirol   R-09HR        113 x  62 x 27   186   166  $ 300    -    +  118

HAND                   DIMENSIONS       VOL  MASS  PRICE  XLR  MIC  EIN
-------------------    --------------  ----  ----  -----  ---  ---  ---
Tascam   DR-07         151 x  81 x 35   212   130  $ 170    -    +  113
Samson   Zoom H2       109 x  64 x 33   230   172  $ 190    -    +   99
Tascam   DR-1          135 x  70 x 27   256   208  $ 250    -    +  115 
Sony     PCM-D50       154 x  72 x 33   365   366  $ 450    -    +  126
Samson   Zoom H4       153 x  70 x 35   375   190  $ 300    +    +  114
Samson   Zoom H4n      156 x  70 x 35   382   280  $ 300    +    +    ?
Tascam   DR-100        151 x  81 x 35   428   290  $ 380    +    +  113

SHOULDER               DIMENSIONS       VOL  MASS  PRICE  XLR  MIC  EIN
-------------------    --------------  ----  ----  -----  ---  ---  ---
Marantz  PMD661        165 x  93 x 36   552   410  $ 600    +    +  125
Marantz  PMD660        184 x 113 x 47   977   700  $ 550    +    +  120
Sound Devices 702      209 x 125 x 45  1176  1000  $1900    +    -  130
Fostex   FR-2LE        206 x 132 x 57  1550   907  $ 600    +    -  129
Marantz  PMD671        264 x 185 x 55  2686  1300  $1000    +    -  125
Tascam   HD-P2         260 x 200 x 63  3276   900  $ 700    +    -  127

As you can see, I have divided the recorders into three categories for ease of comparison: Pocket, Hand and Shoulder. The Pocket category includes small recorders, less than 200 cubic mm. These can easily be used in the hand and stored in a jacket pocket or purse. They are not much bigger than a mobile phone. None of these are big enough to have XLR sockets for professional external mics. Some include built-in microphones. Prices range from $200-500.

The second class are Hand recorders; these may be too big for any but the largest pockets, but are nonetheless quite compact, from 200-500 mm. Nonetheless they are still very light and easy to carry. All have built-in microphones as befits their purpose as all-in-one location recording solutions. The larger units even have XLR jacks. This is the cheapest category with prices from $170-450.

The final class are recorders generally meant to be used slung over the Shoulder, as they are too large to be operated in the hand comfortably. These are 500 mm in volume and up... way up in some cases! All of these have XLR jacks but none have built-in microphones, as all-in-one operation is not expected in this class. This is by far the most expensive category, since it includes recorders with many pro features. Prices range from $550-1900.


A Word About MiniDisc

All of the items on this list record to flash memory except the first; it's a MiniDisc recorder. I include it here since, remarkably, it's still the smallest and lightest digital recorder available.

MD at first used only the Sony-proprietary ATRAC file compression scheme. Uploading to the computer required use of Sony software and a brain-bending series of operations that limited operations based on copyright concerns. Plus it wouldn't play MP3 files, which is what everyone was using by then. Three strikes and Sony were out; everyone stopped caring about MiniDisc.

Late in the product life cycle (far too late) the Hi-MD line was introduced. These models used significantly larger 1GB cartridges and could record at uncompressed 44.1KHz 16-bit (generally good enough for any signal they would be fed). They supported MP3 files. The software was updated to automatically convert files to standard WAV format. Copyright restrictions were removed. The process is still nowhere near as easy as dragging a file from one folder to another. But it works. All the complaints leveled against MiniDiscs were answered.

Incredibly, the Sony MiniDisc has almost unmatched sound quality. By restricting the sample rate and bit depth, the Sony engineers could use a very high quality conversion chip. Compare the EIN values in the table. Then note that the Hi-MD actually has more gain than the Sound Devices (75dB versus 70dB). Wow!

The major limitation of these units is the minuscule interface and poor recording ergonomics. I conducted a full review of the Sony MZ-RH10 four years ago. It was the second-last model. The MZ-RH1 in the table above was the final MiniDisc product from Sony, who moved on to flash recorders like everyone else. It had the further advantages of compatibility with the Mac and improved ergonomics.


Further Observations

You will notice that I have not indicated which recording formats the devices use. That's because it generally does not matter. Even the cheaper units can usually record at 96 KHz and 24 bits. That is far better quality than what the pre-amps can supply. Nonetheless, I generally record at 24 bits so I can lower the input level to avoid clipping and still have lots of bits for encoding actual signal. But I don't bother with 96 KHz unless I feed signal from some very good external microphones (which I do, when required).

Most recorders will also record directly to MP3 in order to gain enhanced recording time when space is limited. Now that flash memory is so cheap, this is not so much of an issue. But if you're taping spoken word, radio broadcasts or something else low-fi, it's handy.

A more extensive recorder list was put together by the NatureRecordist List. My own list was in progress much earlier, so I have not directly compared my numbers to theirs. If you find mistakes, let me know.

Please continue reading in the second of three articles, Which Portable Digital Audio Recorder?

Please donate using the links in the sidebar if you appreciate the work that went into this. Thanks!

Notes

¹ EIN is actually measured in negative numbers below reference, but I have used the absolute value for the purposes of this article.

² Unfortunately some recorders cheat by not providing the full 48V required by the phantom power spec. Hence they may not support all microphones. The MicroTrack II is an infamous case in point. I have also seen small PIP voltages being described as "phantom power", but that is totally incorrect.

3 You can also use a single microphone with stereo capsules. Or you might prefer a single cap shotgun, depending on your application. Discussion of microphones and recording techniques is outside the scope of this article.

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